Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Ice Cream Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the cake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Add corn starch, milk, and baking powder; mix well.
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake until golden.
Make the filling
For the filling, boil 2 cups of sugar with ¼ cup of water until it reaches a hair's breadth consistency.
Slowly pour the hot syrup into the beaten egg whites while whisking continuously.
Add chopped nuts to the filling if desired.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + nutstop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together104 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + corntop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together982 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and flavor.
- Corn starch
- Tenderizes the crumb and softens the structure of the cake.
- Eggs whites
- Beaten whites trap air and set during baking, giving the cake lift and structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the batter rises and becomes light.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown; in the filling it forms a syrup.
The step that matters
Pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be added slowly while whisking constantly. Pouring too fast can cook the egg whites unevenly or deflate them, so the filling loses its airy texture.
Swap the nuts
The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, corn, milk, egg):
- Almondfits better
- Pecansfits better
- Peanutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, corn, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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